Radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster locked away in the upper layers of soil are at risk of being spread through "catastrophic wildfires" caused by climate change as far as Turkey, Italy and Scandinavia, scientists warned.

"In places like Chernobyl and now in Fukushima, we need to prepare for the possibility of these catastrophic fires. And we need to invest in proper management of these areas so they don't go up in smoke," said Tim Mousseau of the University of South Carolina at Columbia, a co-author of the study.

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